As for today, a large quantity of protein feeds is imported from other countries to be used in the Swedish dairy production. The main import is soya from Brazil. The soya-production in Brazil results in negative consequences for the natural environment in the area, and the long transport of the feeds requires a lot of energy. The organic dairy production in Sweden is, with the highest probability going to be forced to use 100 % organic feed to the cows in the year 2005, due to new EU-rules. These are some of the causes why there are reasons to look closer at the possibilities to feed Swedish cows with only Swedish feeds. In this study, I have looked at the KRAV-rules for organic feeding, where the goal is feeding with only KRAV-approved feeds.

This report is a thesis work for a B.Sc. in Forestry exam at the School for Forest Engineers, SLU. The aim of the work was to compare fuel consumption during work in practical field conditions with a standardized method developed by Skogforsk (The Forestry Research Institute of Sweden), (Brunberg, 2005) for harvesters and forwarders from different manufacturers and of different sizes in order to promote the development of more fuel efficient machines. Two studies were carried out. - Statistics of fuel consumption were collected. - An inquiry was sent out in order to get more detailed information of different aspects influencing the fuel consumption. The studied machines were divided into two classes, large machines (> 150 kW), and average size machines (100 ? 150 kW), and of the manufacturer Timberjack and Valmet. Our results shows a 15 % lower fuel consumption for average size harvesters and an 8 % higher fuel consumption for large harvesters compared with Skogforsks model.

The purpose was to look into the pattern of consumption among middleage women. Our questions were how women experienced the need to consume, how they defined the expression of consumption and if there was a difference between "shopping" and "buying". The research has been done through eight qualitative interviews and searching in litterature, illuminating our questions.All women defined consumption as satisfying basic needs. According to them everything bought on a daily bases is consumption. More difficult to define was the experience of "need".

Organic material used for biogas production can also undergo other treatments. The emissions and impact from the different treatments are evaluated in this environmental assessment, with a focus on energy and climate. The materials included in the study are organic household waste, slaughterhouse waste and liquid manure. Other than biogas production, the possible treatments for organic household waste and slaughterhouse waste are incineration and composting, and for liquid manure storing and spreading. The analysis is based on data and information from current and relevant literature, and relates to the conditions in the Swedish energy system.

The scope of this investigation is to decide how and to what extent the energy consumption of apassive house is affected by the users? knowledge and habits. To achieve this a literary study hasbeen made and as a complement the planning of a passive house was completed.The result of a primary study of the rules and regulations that effect passive houses in Swedenshows that the user?s influence on passive houses is a completely unregulated area. Even thoughthere is no regulation, a need for some general knowledge of the passive house concept has beenexpressed.To further investigate how the users? knowledge and habits affect the energy consumption and ifthere is a difference between different households? energy consumption , three main factors havebeen identified.

Globally, coastal ecosystems like mangrove forests, sea grass meadows and salt marshes are well known for their ability to capture and store atmospheric carbon effectively. In Sweden, there is still limited knowledge about local coastal ecosystems with similar functions, with alder swamp forests being an interesting example. Therefore, this study aimed to increase knowledge of the factors that can contribute to the potential carbon sequestering ability of alder swamps. Vegetation data and sediment samples were collected from a total of 37 sampling plots across four alder swamps in Bohusl?n on the Swedish west coast.

This study aimed to evaluate the levels of formaldehyde and organic acids that can build up within enclosed spaces. Another goal was to compare two types of paints that can be used as coating barriers within showcases and in turn compare them to the modern, and by many highly recommended, material of Marveseal®. A low volatile waterborne alkyd/acrylate paint and a two component polyurethane paint was compared to Marveseal® in two series of experiments. One series measured the level of formaldehyde, and thus the effectiveness of the three chosen barriers, and the other series measured the level of volatile organic acids, both the acids emitted from the paint itself, and that of the wood. One box in each series were not treated at all and was used as a reference.The fact that different types of materials emit volatile organic compounds have long been known.

Several studies indicate that Swedish men consume more meat than women, more frequently appear in advertisements for meat and more often than women handle the grilling of meat. Production of meat is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions and thereby poses a challenge for ecological sustainability. Several Swedish politicians and authorities have argued that reduced meat consumption is necessary to prevent continued global climate change. To understand and change consumption patterns we need to understand the consumer. This essay uses textual analysis to examine how Swedish men through text and images in three cookbooks use preparation and consumption of meat to construct different masculinities.

Today, we live in a consumption society. We buy products to soothe our needs and desires. Thru material things we can express our own personal identity and shopping is seen more as a pleasure than a need to survive. With the background media- and communication studies, the reason of this study was to explore how blogs as a social medium can influence the consumption ideal in society. With dialogical analysis and semiotic analysis we wanted to see if we could find a specific consumption culture in the content of six blogs we did our studies on. We found that the blogs showed us that there is normal to have everyday luxury and spoil oneself with expensive things.

Organic material used for biogas production can also undergo other treatments. The emissions and impact from the different treatments are evaluated in this environmental assessment, with a focus on energy and climate. The materials included in the study are organic household waste, slaughterhouse waste and liquid manure. Other than biogas production, the possible treatments for organic household waste and slaughterhouse waste are incineration and composting, and for liquid manure storing and spreading. The analysis is based on data and information from current and relevant literature, and relates to the conditions in the Swedish energy system.

Organic animal husbandry has received a lot of criticism lately. The aim of this literature review was to examine if the rules and principles of organic pig farming give better or worse welfare in comparison to the conventional systems in Sweden. Health, physiology and behaviour have been used as indicators of welfare in this study. This is due to the importance of using more than one indicator in welfare assessments. Studies have shown that organic pigs have more remarks on joints when slaughtered, but these remarks can be reduced by vaccination against erysipelas.

In the coming years, organic food waste will be collected in the region of Gästrikland, Sweden. The collection is planned to cover the entire region by the end of year 2007. To start with, smaller amounts are being collected and transported to a central composting plant in Sala. However, a central composting plant in the region of Gästrikland is projected.The objective of this thesis is to evaluate a number of possible methods for composting of organic food wastes regarding their environmental impacts and localization.There are four scenarios for future composting of organic waste that have been evaluated. There are two that consist of membrane composting, either in Sala or in the region of Gästrikland.

This thesis is part of the evaluation of a development project in Serbia, where cooperativeshave been formed in order to make the members support themselves trough organic farming.The purpose of the paper has been to find out if the goal of making the current members andpotential new members able to support themselves on what the cooperatives produce, hasbeen reached. The goal is to be considered as partly fulfilled; according to the last annualreport from Odraz, ?the registered cooperatives have become fully functional and stable andthey have started making some modest profit.???the majority of the beneficiaries think thatthey are self-reliant??. In order to find out what is required in order to fulfil the establishedgoal entirely, (for example there are no reports of that new members have been recruited, andthe fact that most, not all, current members of the cooperatives (the beneficiaries) say thatthey are supplied from what the cooperatives produce), I have tried to identify the conditionswhich the cooperatives operate under. The basis of the paper consists of a literature review,interviews with the directors of the cooperatives, a questionnaire dealing with the businessenvironment and various external sources in Serbia..

Composting is a process in which organic matter is mineralized by microorganisms. In January 2005 landfilling of organic waste was prohibited in Sweden. With this prohibition composting has become an important alternative to handle the produced organic wastes. One problem with continuous small-scale composting is the production of organic acids that will inhibit a further composting process. The aim of these theses was to study what effects temperature and dry matter content had on the production of organics acids, and what effect the organic acids had on the mineralisation of the substrate as well as the stability during storage of the product.

GE Healthcare operates in Uppsala (Sweden) and develops systems, equipments and medium to purify medical substances. Discussions with the local authority concerning planed far-reaching changes and upgrades of the biological process techniques for sewage management, aroused the question about revising the terms of permit for the activity. Therefore it seemed necessary to evaluate a newly installed biological process technique, which is the background of this thesis. The evaluated biological treatment process was built in 2003 and consists of a biological reactor filled with moving bed carriers with a high surface area for biological growth. At the time of the project the biological wastewater treatment plant consisted of a flow equalization facility and two following parallel biological processes; a biological reactor with moving bed carriers and a tower trickling filter.The aim of this thesis was to survey the function of the biological reactor with respect to the reduction of organic matter.